Good coffee is hard to find. I'm on a mission to make it easier. I started in Korea, moved to Sweden, and now I'm in New York, hunting for the best, and sharing the journey with you here.
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Koppi Cafe & Roastery, Helsingborg, Sweden

When I first moved to Sweden every coffee geek I met spoke in reverent tones about this mysterious cafe and roastery called Koppi in a little town named Helsingborg an hour or so north of Malmö. It was described as the best cafe in Sweden, at the vanguard of the Swedish specialty coffee industry, all while being open, welcoming, pleasant, attractive, talented, world class, delicious. Could any place live up to such endless hype? The short answer: yes!

While I had numerous opportunities to sample Koppi’s roasted coffee thanks to Sam at Te och Kaffehuset in Malmö, I didn’t actually get a chance to visit their shop until just days before I left Sweden and moved to New York. Felix, one of Malmö’s barista prodigies, was heading up north to take a delivery, and I tagged along for the ride.

The cafe space is unique for Sweden with its large glass enclosed roastery, storage, and cupping rooms. The dining space is also big, bright, and contemporary, but warm and comfortable with flowers and a wood paneled accent wall. Their coffees are superlative, with a growing number of unique direct trade offerings, all roasted carefully to shine in their espresso and Aeropress or pour-over brews. The experience at the bar and in the cup matches the hype, as would be expected from owners & partners Anne Lunell and Charles Nystrand, who have both won Sweden’s national barista championship back in 2005 and 2006. Their sandwiches are also delicious; a total experience!

If you’re staying in Copenhagen or Malmö, the 1-2 hour train ride to Koppi in Helsingborg is doable in a day. But, if you have time, I would recommend the ‘Around the Sound’ ticket for 249 Swedish kronor, with which you could travel up to the great art museum, Louisiana, for a morning visit, then cross over by ferry to Helsingborg for a late afternoon coffee and tour around the town, and return south by way of train with stops in scenic Lund and post-industrial Malmö. You’d be hard pressed to do this in one day, but it’d be a great weekend adventure!

Below I’ll leave you with some more shots of Koppi, if you’re not convinced that the trip is worth it :)

Coffee. Beer. Coffee beer. One of their collaborations with Danish beer gods, Mikkeller.

[...] whose curly hair and glasses make him hard to miss, serves a great espresso using coffees from Koppi, a well regarded roastery in Sweden. When I visited they were serving a Rwanda Rubavu single origin [...]